Above: Barbara Dulin launched her non-profit to offer entrepreneurial lessons to city teenagers. Courtesy photo
Barbara A. Dulin is a mother of three, grandmother of ten, and a great-grandmother of fourteen. The Grove Hall native is also a mentor and maternal figure to scores of other young people thanks to a non-profit she founded in 2014.
Dulkin’s Business Not As Usual Entrepreneur Institute, Inc. (BNUEI) focuses on helping teens and young adults from city neighborhoods learn business and life skills. The group, which will benefit from a luncheon fundraiser at the Kroc Center on Dudley Street this Saturday (Aug. 8), was inspired by Dulin’s career and her entrepreneurial efforts.
“I realized that a lot of our youth did not have the foundation they needed,” said Dulin, who now lives at Dorchester’s Keystone Apartments, in a recent interview. “Our youth did not have a pathway to tap into the greatness that was inside them.”
As one of eight siblings, Dulin took on a nurturing role early in life. At 16, she left school to help raise her siblings. Later, she pursued her GED, earned an undergraduate degree at UMass Boston, and a master’s in Education at Cambridge College.
“I saw so much happening during that time. I saw how Black businesses could not thrive in the community, and a lot of it was because of a lack of education and knowledge of the system,” she said.
In 2000, Dulin opened a consulting company she called Business Not As Usual, which provided small businesses with counseling, leadership development, and other supports.
“I went to Madison Park High School, I did a survey with 300 teens, and I realized the importance of empowering them with leadership and entrepreneurial skills,” said Dulin. “Many of them wanted to be business owners, but they didn’t know where to start, and they didn’t know the process.”
The institute today provides teens ages 13 to 17 with access to training through motivational speakers, applied business principles, open discussion, and mentorship.
“We do two series a year. One in April for seven weeks and one in October for seven weeks,” said Dulin. This year’s spring series met at ABCD’s Dorchester office.
“We always meet with the parents first. We lay out the whole program for them, we do a PowerPoint, we let them see what’s happened in the past and what we project to happen in the future,” she said.
Then it’s time to focus on the teens.
“We talk about you, who you are, what are your goals, what are your dreams, where do you want to go in life? We’re not talking about what your friends or other people had said, or not even your parents. We want to see what you want to do.”
The focus is on financial literacy, banking, savings, how to handle money, networking, and more.
Nicholas Josey, executive director at the Boston-based Vincita Institute, was one of the speakers. “I talk to them about the importance of saving for emergencies, about life insurance, about investing, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds,” he said. “I also speak to them about the importance of no matter how much or little they make, making sure they put money away for retirement.”
Another speaker was Michael James, the chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at Cambridge Health Alliance. James, a Roxbury native, met Dulin at the church they share, Greater Love Tabernacle.
“She’s been a mentor for me for two dozen years,” he told The Reporter. “Elder Dulin came to me about 12 or 13 years ago, and she told me about this idea she had to give back to the kids and the community and support them on the path toward entrepreneurship. I made a few suggestions for her program and made a few connections for her to try and get some more support. She actually followed through and created this amazing program that has been going strong.”
Roxbury’s Staton Rhodes DePalm, 17, is one of the institute’s participants. A recent graduate of the Newman School in Back Bay, he said that Dulin and her team “teach you that you need to get out of your comfort zone in order to be an entrepreneur.”
Come this fall, DePalm plans on studying business and entrepreneurship at Boston College.
“Other teens should participate because a lot of teens feel like they are alone, and they don’t realize how many kids there are that are exactly like them out there,” said Rhodes DePalm.
Latisha Boyki, whose daughter Gabriella also attended the program last spring, said the experience was so positive that now she’s volunteering herself.
“[Gabriella] is in school now, college, and she actually wants to study business and entrepreneurship, and [BNUEI] definitely sparked her interest in that. Before that, she didn’t know what she wanted to do, but now that’s the goal that she has, to get a degree in that,” Boyki said.
By engaging families, Dulin says she hopes to build a community of mentors and successful neighbors.
“Everything we do is a pathway to tapping into that greatness that is within them,” said Dulin. “That’s what we are doing, we are pulling out the greatness. We want them to be able to have a voice that’s been hidden by the activities of our community, our society, and the system we live in. I want them to begin to expand their horizon and then begin to tap in. They have so much greatness in them.”
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The Boston Network of Urban Educators and Leaders (BNUEL) will host its sixth annual “Lunch for a Cause” fundraiser on Sat., Aug. 8, at 11:30 a.m. at the Salvation Army Boston Kroc Center, 650 Dudley St., Dorchester.
Barbara A. Dulin, BNUEL’s president and executive director, will serve as host. LeFaith Massaquoi will be mistress of ceremonies. Jesse Jeter, CEO of the New England Small Business Group, will deliver the keynote address, with Kevin Koffi appearing as guest speaker.
Tickets are $65. Parking is available behind the Kroc Center. For information and tickets, visit bnuelentrepreneursinstinc.org or email badulin@bnuel.org.
